"There is something about a collective experience..." Anuvab Pal (India)

What was your first experience of theater that converted you to wanting to pursue it as a career?

I saw Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing on Broadway and that sort of changed everything.  

If you could have a drink with any dramatist (living or dead) who would it be and why?

There used to be many but as I've got older, I've realized it is much more fun to know the person through the work. The person invariably ends up being like everyone else. 

Why is theater important to you?

There is something about a collective experience that we don't share that much anymore. Theatre is perhaps the only place left. 

If you could have one of your plays produced in any country in the world, which play and which country would you choose, and why?

The National Theatre in London. I learnt a lot of stuff from those stages. 

Anuvab Pal (India) is a playwright, screenwriter, stand up comic and author. His plays include: Chaos Theory (over 250 production internationally, Finalist BBC World Playwrighting Competition 2007), The President is Coming, 1-888-Dial-India, Fatwa, Out of Fashion, Life, Love & EBITDA and The Bureaucrat. His films include Loins of Punjab (co-written with Manish Acharya) and The President is Coming. He performs his stand up regularly at The Comedy Store Mumbai. Articles and opinions as well as articles and interviews on his work have been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Time Magazine, Elle, Vogue, GQ India, The Guardian, Indian Express just to name a few. http://anuvabpal.wordpress.com/